A typical service bearer network may include a Customer Edge (CE) router, a Provider Edge (PE) router, a provider backbone router and a Route Reflector (RR). Generally, an Open Shortest Path first (OSPF) protocol/Intermediate System to Intermediate System Routing Protocol (IS-IS) is adopted as an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP). A BGP-4 Multiple Protocol Border Gateway Protocol (MP-BGP) is adopted to transfer Virtual Private Network (VPN) information. A Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) is adopted to distribute a label, and a Resource Reservation Protocol-Traffic Engineering (RSVP-TE) is adopted to deploy traffic engineering and bandwidth reservation for a specific application or a destination service. However, the deployment of the typical service bearer network has several problems as follows. There are many routing protocols, and the deployment is complex. Because a forwarding mechanism is based on a destination address, a data packet cannot be forwarded based on the demand of each source end. The source end cannot be dynamically deployed according to a network condition when satisfying the demand on bandwidth and delay of the specific application, and cannot automatically adjust a forwarding path when a certain link in the network is congested. The RSVP may realize bandwidth reservation, but static configuration, rather than dynamic configuration, is generally adopted in actual deployment. In addition, for realizing a perfect bandwidth guarantee, it may be needed to deploy a full-mesh RSV-TE, so the resource consumption is high. Although the RSVP technology is matured, the proportion of actual deployment is very low.
Based on the above problems, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) puts forward a Segment Routing (SR) technology. The SR is a method for routing based on a source address, by superposing a layer of SR information influencing the existing shortest path forwarding outside the data packet, the data packet may be forwarded along the shortest path according to information of these specified path nodes. The SR information is mainly composed of a SR Global Block (SRGB) and an index of the node. The index of each node is unique, and the node may be identified by offsetting in the scope of SRGB according to the index. By means of an SR specified path forwarding function, load balancing and traffic engineering of the network, and fast rerouting and other complex network functions may be realized conveniently.
That is, on a data plane, a source node directs packet forwarding through a segment list; while for a Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) forwarding plane, the segment list is converted into a traditional label stack and inserted in a packet header sent by the source node.
However, because very long segment information may be supported, it may be needed to convert the information into a very deep label stack, which causes the following two problems.
1. It may be needed to upgrade forwarding plane hardware to support a greater label stack processing capacity.
2. A problem of load efficiency and a Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) problem may exist.
Aiming at the above problems, an effective solution has not been presented.